He also directed the construction of siege works at Yorktown, site of the decisive American victory of the war. Duportail participated in fortifications planning from Boston to Charleston and helped Washington evolve the primarily defensive military strategy that wore down the British Army. He was appointed colonel and commander of all engineers in the Continental Army, July 1777 brigadier general, November 1777 commander, Corps of Engineers, May 1779 and major general (for meritorious service), November 1781. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Royal Corps of Engineers, Duportail was secretly sent to America in March 1777 to serve in Washington's Army under an agreement between Benjamin Franklin and the government of King Louis XVI of France. He graduated from the royal engineer school in Mézières, France, as a qualified engineer officer in 1765. One of General Washington's most trusted military advisors, Louis Lebègue Duportail was born near Orleans, France, in 1743. He became Surveyor General of federal public lands and judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. The fortifications that he built there saved the settlements from annihilation during the disastrous Indian wars. In 1788 he led the first settlers to found the present town of Marietta, Ohio. Putnam was named a brigadier general in the Continental Army in 1783. The remains of Fort Putnam, preserved by the Military Academy, still honor his name there. He and his troops helped to fortify West Point, erecting strong defenses atop the steep hill that commanded that garrison. He returned to infantry service in 1777, taking command of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment.
Washington then brought Putnam to New York as his Chief Engineer. He planned the fortifications on Dorchester Neck that convinced the British to abandon Boston. After the Battle of Lexington, he was commissioned an officer of the line, but General Washington soon discovered his engineering abilities. A millwright by trade, his three years of Army service during the French and Indian War influenced him to study surveying and the art of war. Rufus Putnam was born April 9, 1738, in Sutton, Massachusetts.
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